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The scary side of BYOx

The number of devices per user coming into the workplace (or work environment) today is increasing. The term BYOD was coined as cell phone use (Apple or Android) starting flooding into the workplace in the early 2000's. BYOx has been the latest trend in as "Bring your own everything" encompasses the need for enterprises to support not only mobile devices but tablets, applications, phones and portable laptops running on different platforms.

So what is everything? What is X? TechTarget does a phenomenal job showing us exactly what BYO...we need to be prepared for:

But what happens as these devices, things, start to enter your environment? Where are the security gaps in most organization's structures?

The Challenge is Visibility.

From our strategic partner Forescout's solution brief - "According to industry experts, a vast majority of successful attacks exploit well-known vulnerabilities and security gaps on endpoints. Most organizations are unaware of a significant percentage of the endpoints on their network because they are either unmanaged, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), guest or Internet of Things (IoT) devices. They may have disabled or broken agents, or are transient devices that aren’t detected by periodic scans. As such, they remain invisible to most security tools.

Today’s cyberthreats are more sophisticated than ever and can easily evade traditional security defenses. Multivectored, stealthy and targeted, these attacks are focused on acquiring sensitive personal information, intellectual property or insider information. Compromised endpoints and data breaches can often remain undetected for weeks or months. To detect these advanced threats, zero-day attacks and infected endpoints, you need next-generation security controls that do not rely on signatures.

The velocity and evasiveness of today’s targeted attacks, coupled with increasing network complexity, mobility and BYOD, are creating the perfect storm for IT security teams. Without an automated system to continuously monitor and mitigate endpoint security gaps, valuable time is lost performing these tasks manually. And without the ability to automatically and quickly respond to attacks and security breaches, you are leaving the window open for cyberthreats to propagate within your network and exfiltrate data."

So before setting a plan to protect against devices, take a step back and consider all things...no pun intended!